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Monday, 8 May 2017

Cheating at Statistics 20: Precision at Pechenegi

The alleged long-range supremacy of German weapons is a common trope in popular history. The dreaded "Flak 88" sets up on a hill and fires at hordes of incoming T-34s or Shermans, racking up a large amount of kills despite being hard to hide and having limited range in practice. I already picked apart claims of these guns excelling at 3500 meters, but Forczyk brings even more impressive claims by the SS-men for us.

"...the rest of Koptsov's 15th Tank Corps reached Pechenegi on 4 February and was shocked to find that elements of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) were already defending the heights on the far side of the Northern Donets.

...

The Germans emplaced a few 8.8cm Flak guns on the heights and they were able to engage Koptsov's tanks at distances up to 6,000 meters and succeeded in setting nine tanks on fire."

Nine tanks knocked out at ten times the recommended engagement range? Sounds fishy. Let's take a closer look at what was happening at the banks of the Donets on that day.

Thankfully, Forczyk makes my job easy and calls out the unit in question. For non-believers, here's a map of the 3rd Tank Army's positions.

The 15th Tank Corps is right where it should be, at the banks of the Northern Donets at Bogorodichnoye, across the river from Pechenegi. The name is not shown on the map, but the big blue semicircle clearly indicates the German stronghold.

Let's see what the elements of the corps were up to.

"195th Tank Brigade goes first. Short term task: capture Olkhovatka, later advance towards Podsrdnee, Seriy Yar farm, Gnilusha, Zeleniy Gai, Artemovka, Pechenegi, and by the end of February 3rd, 1943, reach the western bank of the North Donets river near Pechenegi."

The brigade was a little bit behind schedule. Having arrived at a major water hazard, they decided to play it safe.

"It was the fierce February of 1943. As usual, the enemy was shelling us with mortars and artillery from Pechenegi. The Corps command decided to send our motorized infantry battalion to the rear of the enemy, occupy a hill, hold the Pechenegi-Chuguyev road under fire. In addition, the raid would create the illusion of encirclement. The battalion could not carry out its task completely, as the enemy threw overwhelming force against it. After a three day presence of the motorized infantry battalion in the enemy rear, the command ordered the battalion to be returned to the Corps positions.

On the next day, the brigade had a new objective: take Pechenegi by storm. It was not possible to use tanks in the assault, and the motorized infantry battalion had to carry out the task."

Documents of the 3rd Tank Army contain a much more concise record of events:

As you can see, the tanks were forced to camp out in the village while their infantry did all the work.

The losses and claims of the 15th Tank Corps also don't suggest that the tanks faced any action at all:

121 enemy soldiers killed, 14 taken prisoner, 1 tank, 4 guns, and 2 planes destroyed. On the Soviet side, 37 were killed or wounded, 2 cannons and 17 cars were lost. Seems like the Red Army units were aware of the guns in an overwatch position and didn't send any tanks into battle, posing the question: whose tanks did the SS allegedly destroy?

Or, if the 'cars' were BA-64s with skis and track set up it would explain how they could cross a frozen river while tanks could not. https://wwiiafterwwii.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/ba64z.jpg?w=809

The Germans were firing down from a height at what they thought were tanks their normal ranging equipment would not have given the correct range. If they used their sights to estimate the range to the "tank" they would of gone by its apparent size in radians. If they assumed it to be a 6.68 meter T-34 but was in fact was a 3.66 m. BA-64 the proportional distance would not be at 6000 m. but near 3300 m.

That's a too ilogical explanation Mo bius. I very doubt they confused distances that much, they would notice that only looking at their cannon fire or seeing how fast those imaginary "tanks" did move. Автомашина also means automobile or transport and here we are talking about motorized infantry, the most logical thing is they were talking about the loses in their automobile transports, truks.

It is illogical to think that it was not possible to use tanks in the assault but trucks could be used. Peter also said a different word was used for trucks. Armored cars have the Russian automobile word in them.

What do you think motorized infantry uses to get close to the fighting zone?Transporting soldiers close to the front to leave them to assault by foot is the standard procedure for these units in any army. 6 kilometers from enemy batteries seems a logical distance to transport them, is close enough but not as close to be (normally) too dangerous (not this case).

Have You checked the records of the 195th tank brigade? According to Glantz, it tried on the evening of the 4th together with forward detachments of the 160th rifle division to cross the northern Donets and was repelled under heavy losses by forces of LSAH.

"195th Tank Brigade goes first. Short term task: capture Olkhovatka, later advance towards Podsrdnee, Seriy Yar farm, Gnilusha, Zeleniy Gai, Artemovka, Pechenegi, and by the end of February 3rd, 1943, reach the western bank of the North Donets river near Pechenegi."

Out of the entire 195th Tank Brigade, the only unit that saw action on the day of the claim was one motorized infantry battalion.

is there a complete record for the 195th Tbr decribing it´s view of the events? Rather than selective snippets, you know..I ask because I happen to know that Glantz was working from russian archival material in this case.

I posted everything I could find. Out of the whole 15th TC, only the 52nd MSBr (namely the one battalion) did anything at all on that day. The rest of the corps wisely sat still and didn't run facefirst into a stronghold across a river.